Of Eclectic Christmas Trees
by Orlissa92
Summary: A long ago promised one-shot for my faithful readers. Christmastime is here (er...was. I am a little bit behind schedule), and it1s the first real Christmas Rose and Dimitri spend together - the first tree they trim together.


**Of Eclectic Christmas Trees  
A/N: A looong ago promised one-shot. Very long ago. I feel ashamed. But I still hope you'll like it :) Happy New Year! :)  
Rating: K+  
Word Count: 2227  
Disclaimer: [Insert funny text here that tells you I don't own Vampire Academy] **

The tree is delightfully eclectic. Maybe a little bit crazy, even. Odd, at least. But still beautiful.

But this happens when you are decorating for Christmas from scraps.

Not that I mind it – it has a certain feeling to it. The feeling of beginning. Beginnings are always (almost always) great.

I sigh, smiling into my mug of mulled wine.

It is our first Christmas together – really together, not that 'we love each other, but we act like there was nothing between us' kind of together. And it is… wow. Beyond words. I know I am talking crazy, but it's almost like magic – not magic like spirit, but something else definitely. Something… deeper. Simpler. I can't really voice it; maybe it's how we go to bed and wake up in the morning together every day. How domestic it is, how in sync we are. So… yeah. Beyond words.

But back to Christmas and to the Christmas tree (and the mulled wine; let's not forget the details).

We didn't want to make a big deal out of it, especially since we know how hectic the days around Christmas were going to be. The whole Court abuzz, not solely with holiday cheer, stuck up royals holding stuck up parties – parties that needed extra security, parties Lissa and Christian were obligated to attend, Dimitri and I were well aware that we would get very little rest during the holidays. But still, there was the need to do something to somehow commemorate this Christmas, to do something.

It's a small thing, I know, and kind of trivial, but we decided to decorate. Nothing over the top, mind you. Just little somethings, so if somebody comes over they won't think that two Scrooges live in this apartment. And here comes what I've mentioned before: decorating from scraps.

It's strange, I know, but I'd never trimmed a tree before in my life. All my Christmases were either spent at – or with – the Academy, where the decorations were given, or on the run, where… well, where we just simply didn't have the chance. Dimitri had had his fair share of family Christmases back in Russian, but ever since he came to the States he had been missing on those.

So there we were, sorta eager, but empty handed – no tree, no ornaments, no fake Santa Clause to hang from the balcony. Not that it stopped us.

First things first, we set out to get a tree – because even without garlands on the banisters, nativity and mistletoe (even though I really wanted to put out some mistletoe), everything has a feel of Christmas with a Christmas tree around.

Still, we didn't do it in the utterly traditional way. Our guardian nature won without fight, and we chose the practical over the traditional. Namely: instead of buying a real tree, we voted for a plastic one. Cheaper, especially on the long run (it's so great to be thinking about the 'long run'), easier to manage. When the Christmas season is over, we can simply put it away. Simple. Easy.

There was only one thing we didn't count on: the wide variety of plastic trees.

Oh, it's not just size and half-hearted – and not so half-hearted – imitations of different kinds of pines. That would be way too… ordinary.

I weighed the tree with a cynical eye, my brows furrowed.

"Dimitri…?"

"Yes?" he answered, his voice just as startled as I felt.

"This is pink."

"I see."

"This is baby pink. Have you ever seen a baby pink tree? …Not counting the cherry trees in Japan."

"Never."

Then I blinked, a small smile replacing my frown.

"You know what? I think it would look fabulous in the living room." I lined my arm through his. "It'd go well with the curtains."

He kissed the top of my head.

"The curtains we still haven't gotten around putting up?"

"Yeah, those ones."

Okay, so we may not have had enough time to completely live in our apartment – but at least we have curtains. Even if they are still in the drawer.

In the end, we bought a pretty normal, green (I guess I have to stress it now), five feet tree. It was real-looking enough, it was conveniently small and had a reasonable price. So it was fine for us – even if instead of having that trademark Christmas tree smell, it smelt like plastic (though no wonder here).

The tree taken care of, we were faced with out next task: getting ornaments – because honestly, having a bare Christmas tree (even if plastic) in your living room is scarily like having a naked man there. I stranger, I mean. I have no objections to a naked Dimitri in the living room.

So when we bought the tree, we also bought a box of ornaments. Those typical, soulless, mass-produced ones. Purple baubles in different sizes, some of them having some pattern frosted on them in silver glitter, a garland or two, a star-shaped top piece. They were modestly pretty, convenient, sufficient to trim a tree and… yes. Pretty much soulless.

When we got home from the store, we put the tree up, just see how it would look – it looked like we'd just pulled it from a Christmas catalogue. Apart from our apparent lack of trimming skills (we just couldn't place the baubles evenly and the garland always ended up being askew), it was just like a photoshopped tree. Two-toned, boring, impersonal. Just like the ones put up in the Court's ballroom where the Christmas ball was to be held.

I cringed at the sight of it.

It just couldn't stay that way.

Our first try to make the tree _ours_ was visiting a Christmas workshop in a community house not far from Court. After a small fee paid in, everyone could make their ornaments – and advent calendars, wreaths, all that Christmassy stuff – with the materials and tools provided there.

There were only humans there – no-one knew us. We were just that lovely, young couple they had never seen before. That couple who sat maybe a little bit too close to each other, maybe laughing a little bit too loud, being just a little bit too clumsy in painting the tiny plaster figures that were supposed to become ornaments.

Stress on the word supposed.

Three of our free afternoons spent at the workshop, we improved very little – but at least we enjoyed ourselves. Even if after those three afternoons we had a total of three ornaments (two made by Dimitri) that turned out well enough that we dared to put them on the tree. But – not to sing odes about myself – I also made a wreath for our door. It is a little bit askew, I admit that, but still: it's ours.

So, despite of our best efforts, our tree remained painfully soulless – and it would have remained so if it's no for Dimitri's family.

The package from across the ocean came two days before Christmas Eve. Wrapped in simple brown paper, the box held treasures: ornaments from Dimitri's childhood.

As it turned out, Dimitri'd written about our poor tree to Karolina, who decided to take the matters into her own hands – and so the package full of selected ornaments (and a few cute, kind of shabby, handmade ones, the courtesy of Paul) had started its journey to the States.

After it arrived that Sunday morning, we sat down on the floor in front of the couch, accompanied by two mugs of hot cocoa, the box between us on the table. We took the ornaments out one by one, carefully, like they were the most precious objects in the world – and in some sense, they were. Dimitri had a few words about each of them.

"I remember this one," he said, picking up a delicate glass bauble. It was beautiful – raised, vertical strips ran along its surface, every one of them decorated with some sparkling paint. It's silly, I know, but it reminded me of the Faberge Eggs. "Grandmother used to have a Moroi lover-"

"Wait a minute! Yeva had a _lover_?" I asked, putting a little too much emphasis on my words just for the dramatic (and comedic effect). He chuckled.

"Well, she had my mother somehow. And she was young once, you know."

"Now, it's even harder to believe than her having a lover."

He just smiled and pecked me on the lips.

"Anyway, I never met him – they broke things off long before I was born –, but he would always send her little trinkets. His gifts would come three or four times a year, always one for her birthday, the others on completely random times. I remember me and my sisters standing around her whenever a package came, waiting for her to open it," he explained with a nostalgic smile. "Then the gifts stopped when I was about twelve. I guess he died, but Yeva never said anything about it."

"Oh," I sighed. "It's still pretty."

"It is," he agreed, putting the ornament away and already picking up the next – it was a little heart made of red and green fabric, with most likely a cardboard core, hanging with a thin, red, silk ribbon. Dimitri smiled at it.

"My Mother made this. She had a… fling with patchwork when I was around sixteen. She made a lot of things, pillowcases, bed covers… and that winter she decided that we should decorate our tree solely with patchwork ornaments." He chuckled. "But she had so much to do around Christmas that year that she never got around to fulfill this plan. She still made a bunch of ornaments, but not enough for a tree." He paused for a little while, turning the little heart around in his hand. "We gave most of them away ever since, but some still remains. Like this one."

I was the one who picked up the next one. It was, too, a handmade one – white nylon tight stretched on wire, decorated with some gold glitter, forming a little angel, complete with a halo and a bow at its neck. It was cute.

"And what about this one?" I asked, holding it up in front of this face.

His eyes widened a little as he took it in.

"They still had this one?" he asked, a little bewildered, taking the ornament from me.

"It seems so. Why? What is it?"

"I got it from Sonya one Christmas… so long ago, I can't even remember. I was maybe nine? That would make her seven. Every year, we kids would give each other self-made gifts. It was silly, but…"

"No," I cut in. "Actually, I think it is adorable. Not silly."

"Thanks," he gave me a grateful smile. "I still can't believe they still had it."

"Well, I can't see them throwing this out!" I commented. But I didn't add a part about what _I_ would do if _we_ had children and _they_ did stuff for each other. No.

There were many other stuff in the boy, too. Other glass baubles, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. More patchwork ornaments. A long string of yarn with cardboard stars covered in silver glitter (half of it got stuck on my hand). Some crochet figurines. Even a picture of Dimitri and his sisters in an ornate, circular, cardboard frame.

So much family history in one small box.

More history than my family had altogether.

Later, when we went through all contents of the box, we gathered around our – catalogue-like, soulless – tree and hung our new-old ornaments up, one by one. They gave it color – some white here, some blue, some red there. Different materials, different forms, different feelings – suddenly, our tree got character. A soul. It was finally really _ours_.

And this is the tree I am looking at right now. This beautifully, wonderfully eclectic tree, with its glass baubles and cardboard and patchwork and handmade ornaments.

The whole tree is a beautiful disarray. So much like my life.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

"A penny for your thoughts?" I hear his light voice from behind a back. I turn to him, a smile on my face.

"Why not a Rubel?"

He shrugs and starts his short walk from the kitchen to the couch where I am sitting.

"This is the phrase – penny. But if you want, I can say Rubel." He gets to me and sits down by me. "So, What's on you mind?" he asks as his arm sneaks around my shoulder.

It's my turn to shrug.

"Nothing in particular," I say, taking a sip of my wine. The alcohol is slowly setting in my system, creating a pleasant buzz. "It's just… it's just that our tree is beautiful."

He follows my gaze and considers the plastic tree.

"It's okay, I guess."

"It has a soul."

"That's for sure."

"That makes it beautiful."

"Or at least unique."

"Unique is beautiful."

"I won't argue with you about this one." He plants a small kiss on my forehead. We stay silent for some time, wrapped up in each other's presence.

"Hey, Dimitri?" I say after a while. Hearing his questioning grunt, I continue. "Let's make a tradition of this."

"Of what?"

"Of eclectic Christmas trees. Next year, maybe, we could add some more… eclectic… even kitschy… ornaments."

His chuckle makes my whole body vibrate.

"I am all for it."

**A/N: Okay, it took me way more time than I care to admit. But I promised you would get it this year, and you did get it this year, didn't? :) (Well, not if you live in Australia and Asia, and if you do, I apologize!) Thank you for you support this year! You guys, every one of you, are amazing! You make me going. You are extraordinary.  
P.S.: Sorry if the last part is a little… weird. It's New Year's Eve. I am of age. I am kinda tipsy. …But on the upside I feel like the liquor might have improved my poetic input :)**


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